Steve Blair

Contact Information

Positions

• Director of Engineering Clinic Program, Dept. of ECE (2006-)
• Director of Center for Microarray Technology, Dept. of ECE (2005-2011)
• Professor, Dept. of ECE (2012-)
• Associate Professor, Dept. of ECE (2005-2011)
• Assistant Professor, Dept. of ECE (1998-2005)
• Adjunct Professor, Bioengineering (2000-)
• Adjunct Professor, Physics (2002-)
• Adjunct Professor, Materials Science and Engineering (2010-)

Education

• Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, University of Colorado, 1998
• Dissertation: Optical Soliton-Based Logic Gates
• Advisor: Kelvin Wagner
• M.S., Electrical Engineering, University of Colorado, 1996
• M.S., Applied Optics, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, 1993
• Thesis: Photochromic Methyl-Violet as a Holographic Medium
• Advisor: Azad Siahmakoun
• B.S., Computer Engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, 1991
• B.S., Applied Optics, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, 1991

Classes

• ECE 5410: Lasers & Their Applications

• ECE 3300: Fundamentals of EM & Transmission Lines
• ECE 6910/7910: Graduate Seminar

Research

My overall research focuses on the development and application of micro- and nano-photonic devices to problems in computing, biology and medicine. Research topics include:

• plasmonic antennas for enhancing light matter interactions,
• neural photonics - using light to effect and/or record neural signals,
• silicon-photonic devices

Recent Papers

• Layne Williams, Steve Blair, Alexander Chagovetz, Daniel J. Fish and Albert S. Benight, "The paradox of multiplex DNA melting on a surface," Analytical Biochemistry 409, 150-152 (2011)

• Sachin Attavar, Mohit Diwekar, and Steve Blair, "Photoactivated capture molecule immobilization in plasmonic nanoapertures in the ultraviolet," Lab on a Chip 11, 841-844 (2011)

• Mingfang Yi, Douguo Zhang, Pei Wang, Xiaojin Jiao, Steve Blair, Xiaolei Wen, Qiang Fu, Yonghua Lu and Hai Ming, "Plasmonic interaction between silver nano-cubes and a silver ground plane studied by surface-enhanced Raman scattering," Plasmonics 6, 515-519 (2011)

• James R. Nagel, Steve Blair, and Michael A. Scarpulla, "Exact field solution to guided wave propagation in lossy thin films," Optics Express 19, 20159-20171 (2011)

• Jonghwa Jeong, Debra Mascaro, and Steve Blair, "Precise pixel patterning of small molecule organic light-emitting devices by spin casting," Organic Electronics 12, 2095-2102 (2011)

• Xiaojin Jiao and Steve Blair, "Polarization multiplexed optical bullseye antennas," Plasmonics 7, 39-46 (2012)

• Tanya V. F. Abaya, Mohit Diwekar, Steve Blair, Prashant Tathireddy, Loren Rieth, Greg A. Clark, and Florian Solzbacher, "Characterization of a 3D optrode array for infrared neural stimulation," Biomedical Optics Express 3, 2200-2219 (2012)

• Henryk Szmacinski, Ramachandram Badugu, Farhad Mahdavi, Steve Blair, and Joseph R. Lakowicz, "Large fluorescence enhancements of fluorophore ensembles with multi-layer plasmonic substrates: Comparison of theory and experimental results," The Journal of Physical Chemistry C 116 21563-21571 (2012)

• Tanya V. F. Abaya, Steve Blair, Prashant Tathireddy, Loren Rieth, and Florian Solzbacher, "A 3D glass optrode array for optical neural stimulation," Biomedical Optics Express 3, 3087-3104 (2012)

• Xiaojin Jiao and Steve Blair, "Optical antenna design for fluorescence enhancement in the ultraviolet," Optics Express 20, 2209-29922 (2012)

• Xiaolei Wen, Zheng Xi, Xiaojin Jiao, Wenhai Yu, Guosheng Xue, Douguo Zhang, Yonghua Lu, Pei Wang, Steve Blair, and Hai Ming, "Plasmonic coupling effect in Ag nanocap-nanohole pairs for surface-enhanced Raman scattering," Plasmonics 8, 225-231 (2013)

• Kanagasundar Appusamy, Steve Blair, Ajay Nahata, and Sivaraman Guruswamy, "Low-loss magnesium films for plasmonics," Materials Science and Engineering B 181, 77-85 (2014)

• Tanya V.F. Abaya, Mohit Diwekar, Steve Blair, Prashant Tathireddy, Loren Rieth and Florian Solzbacher, "Deep-tissue light delivery via optrode arrays," Journal of Biomedical Optics 19, 015006 (2014)

• Cindy T. Cooper, Miguel Rodriguez, Steve Blair and Jennifer Shumaker-Parry, "Polarization anisotropy of multiple localized plasmon resonance modes in noble metal nanocrescents," The Journal of Physical Chemistry C 118, 1167-1173 (2014)

• Christopher Condrat, Priyank Kalla, and Steve Blair, "Crossing-aware channel routing for integrated optics," IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems 33, 814-825 (2014)

• Miguel Rodriguez, Cynthia Furse, Jennifer S. Shumaker-Parry, and Steve Blair, "Scaling the response of nanocrescent antennas into the ultraviolet,'' ACS Photonics 1, 496-506 (2014)

• Wenmei Ming, Steve Blair, and Feng Liu, "Quantum size effect on dielectric function of ultrathin metal film: A first-principles study of Al(111)," Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter 26, 505302 (2014)

• Xiaojin Jiao, Eric M. Peterson, Joel M. Harris, and Steve Blair, "UV fluorescence lifetime modification by aluminum nanoapertures," ACS Photonics 1, 1270-1277 (2014)

• Xiaojin Jiao, Yunshan Wang, and Steve Blair, "UV fluorescence enhancement by Al and Mg nanoapertures," Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics 48, 184007 (2015)

• Jieying Mao and Steve Blair, "Nanofocusing of UV light in aluminum V-grooves," Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics 48, 184008 (2015)

• Kanagasundar Appusamy, Xiaojin Jiao, Steve Blair, Ajay Nahata and Sivaraman Guruswamy, "Mg thin films with Al seed layers for UV Plasmonics," Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics 48, 184009 (2015)

• Cindy T. Cooper, Miguel Rodriguez, Steve Blair, and Jennifer S. Shumaker-Parry, "Mid-infrared localized plasmons through structural control of gold and silver nanocrescents," The Journal of Physical Chemistry C 119, 11826-11832 (2015)